From the New York Times - April 25, 2001
OKLAHOMA CITY, April 24 —
Bud Welch has been calling
Bill McVeigh a couple of times a week since federal officials announced that
Mr. McVeigh's only son, Timothy, 33, would be executed on May 16 for the 1995
bombing that killed 168 people here and injured nearly 700. Mr. Welch's only
daughter, Julie Marie, 23, died in the blast.
 "He's going to lose his son," said Mr.
Welch, 61, a Texaco service station owner, who since the bombing has become an
outspoken opponent of the death penalty, a stance that is shaped in large part
by his Roman Catholic faith. "And when we take Tim McVeigh out of that cage to
execute him," Mr. Welch said, "it isn't going to bring Julie Marie back."
Attorney General John Ashcroft traveled here two weeks ago to
meet with some 90 victims and survivors and later decided to allow the
closed-circuit television viewing of the execution in order to allow victims to
"meet their need to close this chapter in their lives."
The group that met Mr. Ashcroft represented only a fraction of
the more than 2,300 people who are listed as victims and survivors in a
database at the United States attorney's office here.
From the initial aftermath, when the previous attorney general,
Janet Reno, pledged to seek the death penalty for the killers, to the trial,
when 38 witnesses and survivors testified for the prosecution in the penalty
phase, to Mr. Ashcroft's recent visit, the victims and survivors have been
portrayed as monolithic, all bent on the ultimate punishment.
But while no one doubts that in this staunchly pro-death penalty
state the majority of the group favors capital punishment for Mr. McVeigh, as
May 16 approaches, there is plenty of debate. Is it right to show the execution
on closed-circuit television? Is it right for the federal government to put
Timothy McVeigh to death? What does the Bible say about capital punishment?
Will the execution "close this chapter" in the lives of the victims and
survivors, as Mr. Ashcroft seemed to suggest?
While he may be the most visible member of the group, Bud Welch
is not alone in opposing the execution on moral and religious grounds. Tim
McCarthy, 30, whose father, Jim, 53, was killed in the blast, acknowledges that
he does not know what he would do if left alone in a room with Mr. McVeigh. And
yet, as a Catholic, he says that he believes it is wrong for the government to
kill him.
Patti Hall, 64, who was crushed by six floors of concrete in the
blast and has been on permanent disability ever since, recalls that she
celebrated when Mr. McVeigh was sentenced to death four years ago, but she says
she has since decided that "it isn't right to take a life."
"God says `Vengeance is mine,' " said Ms. Hall, a Southern
Baptist. "But he also says, `Pray for those who persecute you.' I'm praying for
his soul."
Those who were inside the federal building when it was bombed,
and those whose family members died in the blast, may be the largest and most
powerful group of survivors of a crime in recent American history. They built a
$29 million national memorial in a record three and a half years, raising $5
million from both the federal and state governments, as well as private
contributions.
Some of them successfully helped lobby for passage of a federal
bill that sharply restricts the appeals of death row inmates. They also won the
right to have Mr. McVeigh's trial shown on closed-circuit television in
Oklahoma City.
Early on, they divided into subgroups: injured survivors,
uninjured survivors, high-profile victims who used the bombing to lobby for
victims' rights, and victims who preferred to grieve in private, to name a few.
They disagreed on everything from who should be considered an official survivor
to the design of the memorial.
Now, so volatile is the subject of whether Mr. McVeigh should be
executed that Florence Rogers, who escaped the bombing with minor injuries but
lost 35 members of her staff at the federal credit union, says she does not
want to state her opinion.
"I've got friends on both sides of the issue," she said in an
interview. "Bud Welch is a very good friend of mine. He's totally against the
death penalty. And I've got some that want to see him [McVeigh] fry tomorrow
that are good friends of mine."
Peggy Broxterman, 70, whose son Paul, 42, was killed in the
bombing, is one of the 10 people among the survivors and victims' relatives
chosen by lottery last week to attend the execution in Terre Haute.
"It's all for my son," Mrs. Broxterman, a retired elementary
school reading specialist, said in a telephone interview from her home in Las
Vegas, explaining why she wanted to watch Mr. McVeigh die. "That means McVeigh
is out of here, he's gone. He's out of life entirely. I don't even want him
breathing."
The anger of those who favor the execution has intensified in
recent weeks with the publication of a new book, "American Terrorist" (Regan
Books), in which Mr. McVeigh refuses to express remorse. If he had known there
was a day-care center inside the federal building, Mr. McVeigh told the
authors, Lou Michel and Dan Herbeck, he might have considered switching
targets.
"That's a large amount of collateral damage," Mr. McVeigh said,
referring to the babies among the 19 children killed by his bomb.
Calvin Moser, a federal worker who lost 35 colleagues in the
explosion, was among the group that lobbied for the closed-circuit viewing.
"How can you turn around and say collateral damage?" said Mr. Moser, 59, who
lost more than half of his hearing in the explosion, and lives with a permanent
ringing in his ears. "He's a baby killer."
It is hard to know at this point just how much interest there is
in viewing the execution. In January, the United States attorney's office here
sent out letters to 1,100 households of victims and survivors — many
households have multiple victims — asking people if they wanted to
participate in the execution in some way. There were 285 responses from people
expressing interest.
A new mailing went out last week, asking specifically about the
closed- circuit viewing. Responses are due back on May 1.
Kathleen Treanor, whose daughter, Ashley, 4, and whose father
and mother-in-law, Luther and LaRue Treanor, 61 and 55, were killed in the
bombing, says she not only plans to participate in the closed-circuit viewing,
but wants her sons David, 15, and Zachary, 13, to join her.
"They want to watch," Mrs. Treanor said, adding that she intends
to write Mr. Ashcroft a letter asking him to make an exception to the rule that
only those 18 and over can watch. "I think it might hurt them if they don't
— if I deny them the satisfaction of them being the last ones standing and
looking at this guy's face and triumphing over this evil that has haunted them
for years."
Susan Walton, who was severely injured in the bombing and came
close to having both her legs amputated, says she does not oppose the
execution, even though she knows people who think "keeping him alive and in
prison is more of a punishment than the death penalty."
But she added: "I don't want to watch it. I don't need to see
him take his last breath, like some of them do."
Even if she had not decided that the execution was wrong, Patti
Hall said, she would not want to watch. "There's been enough death," said Ms.
Hall, who broke bones in 40 places in the bombing.
With all the fervor for Mr. McVeigh's execution that is being
expressed by a handful of victims' relatives and survivors on television these
days, the mood here is not as strident as it was in the beginning.
Rob Roddy, 50, escaped the building unharmed but lost 35
co-workers in the blast. "I was opposed to the death penalty, prior to the
bombing," he said. "But for the first couple months I was thinking maybe we
ought to have a one-time exception in Rob's system of morality. Maybe we ought
to let one or two people be executed that could do something like that."
"It was a couple months before I got my senses back," Mr. Roddy
said. "I have certain core beliefs, core values. If I lose that, I become
something of a victim, more than I had been."
For months after his daughter was killed, Bud Welch recalled, he
was nearly obliterated by feelings of rage and vengeance. "I didn't even want
trials for them," he said. "I wanted them fried. The best way I can describe
that is as a period of temporary insanity."
Eventually, he became a spokesman for Murder Victims Families
for Reconciliation, a national organization that opposes the death penalty, and
began traveling the country giving speeches. It was during one of those trips,
to upstate New York three years ago, that he arranged to meet Bill McVeigh at
his home.
The one subject on which all sides seem to agree is that
"closure" does not exist. "You close on a house," said Mrs. Broxterman. "You
don't close on a death." .
Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company
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 By Michael Pfeiffer,OMI
Published
4-18-2001
Copyright 2001 - Dallas Morning News
Like most Texans, I am proud of our state's many
accomplishments. But in one area, I wish Texas weren't "No. 1." 1 wish we
weren't the national leader in executions.
Texas has executed 245 men and women in its death chamber in the
past 19 years. That is more than a third of all executions in the United
States. Last year alone, Texas conducted almost half of all executions in
America.
Legislation pending in the Legislature would allow us to stop
that frantic execution schedule while we as a state examined our justice
system. It is up to our lawmakers to g~ye us ;; break from killing for a few
months.
Leaders from religious communities across the state share my
concern about Texas' use of the death penalty. As I talk with my fellow
Catholic bishops, with bishops of other Christian denominations and with
leaders of Jewish congregations, it is clear that we all share a grave concern
over Texas' aggressive application of the ultimate punishment.
Our churches speak with one voice against the death penalty. In
spite of a common assumption to the contrary, "an eye for an eye and a tooth
for a tooth" doesn't give justification for state executions. Jesus explicitly
repudiated retaliation (Matthew 5:38-39), and the Talmud denies its literal
meaning, holding that the rule refers to financial indemnities.
Therefore, we can't accept retribution or social vengeance as
reasons for taking human life. That reasoning violates our deepest beliefs in
God as creator and redeemer of humanity. Furthermore, we accept no assertion
that human life can be taken humanely.
When a woman accused of a crime for which death was the common
punishment was brought before Jesus, he pointedly questioned the moral
authority of those who were ready to carry out the execution. The accusers
dropped their case (John 8:31).
For that reason, we are especially concerned about the ways
people are sentenced to death in Texas. Those on death row haven't always
committed the worst crimes or posed the greatest threats to our communities.
Far too often, those condemned men and women are among the poorest and least
educated. Almost without exception, they lack resources for adequate legal
counsel.
We have heard about seven men who were released from the Texas
death row because they ultimately were proved innocent of the crimes for which
they were convicted. As a matter of justice, we believe that no person should
face death until all possibilities of innocence have been eliminated.
Our citizens must be safe, but as people of faith we have a
responsibility to speak out against injustice. We have an obligation to look at
how our society treats the most disadvantaged in our communities. A criminal
justice system without fundamental fairness for those accused protects no one.
Therefore, we call upon our legislative leaders to examine where
our criminal justice system might be broken. We hope they will propose reforms
that ensure justice for all.
While the legislative review is going on, we urge a moratorium
on all executions in Texas. At the very least, state legislators should give
the governor the power to suspend executions and name a commission to examine
the death penalty system.
Bishop Michael Pfeiffer of San Angelo is president of the
Texas Conference of Catholic Bishops and outgoing president of the Texas
Conference of Churches.
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(NOTE- This is an excerpt from a transcript of a presentation
made at Harvard University on March 16, 1999 by two member of Murder Victims
Families for Reconciliation, Executive Director Renny Cushing and National
Board Of Directors Member Bud Welch, at a program sponsored by the Human Rights
Initiative at the Kennedy School of Government )
My name is Bud Welch, and I hope you can understand my Oklahoma
accent. Actually, you have the accent, I don't. I'm gonna tell you briefly
about myself. I'm the third oldest of eight children, raised on a dairy farm in
central Oklahoma. I've run a gasoline service station for 34 years. I lived a
quiet, unassuming life until April 19, 1995 when my daughter, Julie Marie, was
killed in the Oklahoma City Bombing. Julie was my only daughter, my pal, my
sidekick if you will, and my best friend, and my wife understands that, that
Julie was my best friend. We hung together, we fought together, we did
everything together…
…All my life, I had always opposed the death penalty. My
entire family has, even going back to my grandparents. I'd often been told over
a cup of coffee with friends that supported the death penalty -- or thought
they supported the death penalty -- that if something violent ever happened to
one of my family members -- when Julie got to be a teenager, they would always
use Julie as an example, because they knew how close we were. I would have some
of them make such statements to me as, "What if you get a call tonight and
Julie was raped and murdered in Milwaukee?" That's something a father just
doesn't -- you just can't sort that out in your mind, that anything like that
could ever even. They said, "If that happens, you'll change your mind about the
death penalty."
Well, after Tim McVeigh bombed the Oklahoma City Federal
Building, the rage, the revenge, the hate -- you can't think of enough
adjectives to describe what I felt like. I did change my mind about the death
penalty. After McVeigh and Nichols had been charged -- I mean, Fry the
Bastards. We didn't need a trial, a trial was simply a delay. That was my
feeling, that was my emotion. You've heard people speak of temporary insanity,
and you've heard people trying to use it, lawyers try to use it in court.
Temporary insanity is real, it exists, I can assure you. I've lived it -- I
lived about 5 weeks of it. You no doubt probably saw at some point McVeigh or
Nichols being rushed from an automobile to a building, bulletproof vests on,
and the reason that the police do this is because people like me will kill
them. That's why they do it. The police presence around Tim McVeigh and Terry
Nichols was the very deterrent that kept me from being on death row in Oklahoma
today. Because had I thought that there was any opportunity to kill them, I
would have done so. I didn't come up with a plan to do it, I knew there was no
way I would be able to do it. I wouldn't have cared if they had killed me, if I
could have been successful in killing them. So, suicide meant nothing to me
either during that insanity period. For about the next 8 months, I struggled
with the thought of what's going to happen to these people, how am I going to
get some peace. I had remembered that President Clinton and Attorney-General
Janet Reno -- the bombing was on Wednesday morning at 9 o'clock, I think by
Thursday afternoon, the next day, while Julie's body was still missing -- her
body was not recovered until Saturday -- I heard those two leaders say that
they were going to seek and obtain the death penalty for the perpetrators. That
sounded so wonderful to me at the time, because here I had been crushed, I had
been hurt, and that was the big fix. We were going to find these guys and we
were going to kill 'em. I thought about that over the next 8 months, also
remembered the statement that Julie had made to me driving across Iowa one time
of her junior year when we were returning from Milwaukee to Oklahoma City. We
heard a news cast on the radio about an execution that had happened in Texas
the night before. Julie's response to that was, "Dad, all they're doing is
teaching hate to their children in Texas. It has no social redeeming value." I
didn't think a hell of a lot of it at the time, but I remembered her saying
that. Then after she was killed, and after I got past this initial 5 week
period, this kept echoing in my mind, what this kid had said to me. She was
active for Amnesty International in high school and in college, was working for
organizations and groups like that all through college…
…But I had this anguish about what was going to happen. The
trials hadn't even begun yet, and I went to asking myself, once they're tried
and executed, what then? How's that going to help me? It isn't going to bring
Julie back. I had asked that question for a period of 2 weeks probably. I
realized that its all about revenge and hate. And revenge and hate is why Julie
and 167 others are dead today. That was McVeigh and Nichol's revenge and hate
for the Federal Government, for Waco, for Ruby Ridge, whatever other cause they
felt justified what they did. After I was able to get that revenge and hate out
of my system, I made a statement to an Associated Press reporter one day, that
I did not believe in the death penalty. This after a long conversation of
bragging on my child, telling what a wonderful daughter she was, how close we
were, but yet -- in the same breath -- I told her that I didn't want her killer
killed. The reporter's moth -- it didn't fly open, but it was almost as if it
had, because she couldn't imagine how I could be so close to this child and not
want her killers killed. Anyway, she wrote a wire story on it, and that's how I
ended up here today, because people like Renny Cushing heard about my name and
what I felt, and I guess I didn't realize it was that unique in this country to
be a victim's family member and not want the killers executed.
I saw Bill McVeigh, Tim's father, on television a few weeks
after the bombing. He's a very quiet type of person, did not grant hardly any
television interviews. There was a crew out at his house in rural New York,
just outside of Buffalo. He was working in his flowerbed. The reported asked
him a question -- I don't know what the question was or the answer. But I saw
him look into the television camera for a short 2 or 3 seconds, and I saw a
deep pain in a father's eye that probably none of you could have even
recognized. I could because I was living that pain. And I knew that some day I
had to go tell that man that I truly cared about how he felt, I did not blame
him or his family for what his son had done. I had made a number of speeches
across the country, from coast to coast really, and in June of last year, a nun
by the name of Sister Rosalyn called me from Attica prison. She's been a
minister in Attica prison for about 10 years, and she was wanting me to come to
the Buffalo area to speak at colleges and universities, civic groups, churches,
about the death penalty. Through our hour to an hour and a half conversation of
getting to know one another, I related that story to her about what I had seen
in Bill McVeigh's eyes. The question I asked her was, "Is the McVeigh family
from someplace around Attica or someplace in that area of New York?" I wasn't
real sure. She described to me exactly where it was. She then said, "Well,
would you want me maybe to pursue that?" And I told her that I would. I wanted
the message to go to him that I did not want any media involved, I wanted it to
be a very private thing between the two of us…
…On this Saturday morning, Sister Roslyn takes me out to
the country, to Bill McVeigh's house. Ros is a careless, careless driver. You
really don't want to ride with her. She pulls into his driveway at the speed of
probably 50 miles per hour, it's a gravel driveway, the house sits back off the
roadway. She comes to a screeching halt, says, "There's the door. Go knock on
it." Like its something that you might do everyday. I was sitting in the car,
and I didn't know how I was going to be able to do this at all, I didn't know
what I was going to be able to say. Anyway I went up and knocked on the door,
he came to the door, and I introduced myself. I asked him, I said, "I
understand that you have a large garden in your backyard," and that excited
him. He said, "Oh, yeah, would you like to see it?" I said, "I'd love to." This
just put relief all over me, because I knew this was gonna be some common
ground. I knew what big gardens were all about, there was 10 of us in the
family in Central Oklahoma, and we always had a big garden. I hoed gardens
every year when I was a child. So, we spent the first half-hour in that garden
getting to know one another. We went into the house, spent about an hour and a
half in the house visiting at the kitchen table. His 23-year-old daughter
Jennifer was there. As I walked in the kitchen I noticed a photograph -- there
were some family photos on the kitchen wall up above the table. And I noticed
this photo of Tim. I kept looking at it as we were sitting at the table, with
Bill sitting off to my left. I knew that I had to comment on it at some point,
so finally I looked at it and I said, "God, what a good looking kid." And Bill
says to me, "That's Tim high school graduation picture." By Bill's own
admission, he has a difficult time showing emotion, he has all his life, he
told me that when we were in the garden. And then I saw a big tear roll out of
his right eye. He's a big guy, he's about 6'2'', 6'3'', and I saw love in a
father's eyes, at that moment, for his son, that was absolutely incredible. And
I know without a doubt that Bill McVeigh loves his son more today that he did 4
years ago. Because we, as parents, have a way of loving our children more the
more they need us...
…Tim's guilt or innocence never came up, that was not my
purpose in going there. I didn't have to have Bill McVeigh look me in the eye
and say, "I'm sorry my son killed your daughter." I didn't have to hear that.
But I was able to tell him that I truly understood the pain that he was going
through, and that he -- as I -- was a victim of what happened in Oklahoma City.
We talked about how many generations of McVeigh's had been in western New York.
They were Irish Catholic, I'm Irish Catholic, and I told him that I was a third
generation of Welch's in Central Oklahoma. So that was more common ground for
us. But after our hour and a half long visit, I got up from the kitchen table
and Jennifer came from the other end of the table, and gave me a hug, and we
cried, and we sobbed, and I was able to hold her face in my hands -- I'll never
forget it -- I was able to hold her face in my hands and tell her, "Honey, the
three of us are in this for the rest of our lives. And we can make the most of
it if we choose. I don't want your brother to die. And I will do everything in
my power to prevent it." And she hugged me again, and I left -- they had left a
rental car for me outside of this house so I could drive back into Buffalo, its
about 20 miles back into town, and I wanted to get back to Hope House, which is
a halfway house for released prisoners, that I had spent about 5 days in and
out of. I got to know Sister Karen who runs Hope House, and I knew Sister
Rosalyn would be there as well. And I'm driving back to Buffalo, I couldn't see
through my glasses because I was still sobbing, I'm driving practically 80, 85
miles per hour -- probably another short time of temporary insanity again, I've
thought about it since, I think it was. When I got back to Hope House I sat in
the living room and sobbed, and sobbed, and made a total ass out of myself for
an hour. I honestly did. But after I got through that period of time, I had all
of a sudden -- I don't know what it is to be a born again Christian. I've heard
that term all my life. I occasionally become suspicious when someone tells me
they're a born again Christian; I don't know why I do that, but I do. But I
have never felt closer to God in my life than I did at that moment, once I was
through that sobbing, because I felt like there was this load taken completely
off my shoulders. I wish I could explain it to you; I wish I could make you
understand the way it felt to me.
I left the next day to go back to Oklahoma City. And on Monday
morning, Liz McDermott called me -- she was the next door neighbor -- and she
said, "Bud, I haven't heard a spirit in Bill McVeigh's voice for 3 ½
years like I've heard now." She said, "I want you to understand that this is
the greatest thing you ever could have done for him." And I wasn't doing it for
Bill McVeigh, I was doing it for myself, it was a selfish thing on my part.
But, as it turned out, it worked for all three of us…
…As far as the death penalty is concerned, it won't help me
any when Tim is killed. The death penalty is about revenge and hate, and I know
there are people sitting around this table right now that profess to be
Christians. If we're going to truly follow Christ, as I feel like I try to do,
I think we must ask ourselves this one question about the death penalty: "Would
Jesus pull the switch?" I don't think that he would, because Jesus stopped an
execution, when he said, "Let those who are without sin cast the first stone."
I think Ghandi put it very well about the Old Testament -- "An eye for an eye
leaves the whole world blind."
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OF PAGE |
At the recent meeting of the province Justice, Peace
& Integrity of Creation committee the issue of the upcoming execution of
Timothy McVeigh on May 16th was discussed. A number of bishops throughout the
country, it was pointed out, have offered interviews and issued statements
about this. We recently shared with all of you the statement of the Catholic
Bishops of the United States; Responsibility, Rehabilitation, and
Restoration.
